Mozilla on Tuesday, May 2, announced the acquisition of the startup Fakespot.

Source: Pixabay.com

This startup offers a website and a browser extension that help users identify fake reviews and comments containing false information. There is no data on the financial terms of this transaction.

Fakespot offers can be used to identify fake reviews posted on various online platforms, including Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and others. The startup, which is based in New York, was founded in 2016. The company uses artificial intelligence and a machine learning system to identify patterns and similarities between reviews to identify those comments that are most likely to mislead users.

The startup also provides a grading system and ratings for product reviews. This technical proposal of the company will allow users to decide to purchase a particular good more reasonably and without the influence of false content comments. The purpose of the company’s website and browser extension is to let customers see in which cases the rating of the product in the search engine is artificially overestimated by false comments.

Mozilla Product Director Steve Teixeira stated in his blog that Fakespot will continue to work in all major web browsers and mobile devices, and the new owner of the startup will provide investment funds to improve its performance.

He also said that in the future, unique integrations of Fakespot and Firefox will be presented. According to him, this solution will allow Firefox users not to react to reviews that are not a fair assessment of the qualities of a particular product, and make purchases based on reliable information. The designation of this solution as unique is fair only in the context of its implementation in the Mozilla product since the startup technically does not offer anything fundamentally new.

For Firefox users, the introduction of a new tool is an opportunity to improve the effectiveness of actions in the e-commerce space. It is not yet known when the startup’s functional solutions will appear in this browser.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have long been used as a tool for detecting fake reviews, but the current situation in the technology sector indicates that this counteraction to the spread of false information in the commercial space will become more complicated. It is known that with the help of AI-based chatbots, like, for example, ChatGPT from OpenAI, some users create comments about the quality of products from certain manufacturers. Such reviews in a technological sense can become a new level of fraud. The current situation could potentially lead to AI trying to expose itself.

A few weeks ago, Mozilla launched a startup focused on artificial intelligence called Mozilla.ai The goal of the new company is to create an open-source AI. This was announced by Mark Surman, Mozilla Executive president and head of Mozilla.ai.

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